New York City Ballet: New Combinations

DANCE
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2020
7:30 PM

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan

$35-$200
https://www.nycballet.com/Season-Tickets/19-20-Season-Page/Winter-2020/NEW-COMBINATIONS.aspx

The main draw from this List's perspective is a fantastic new piece by Alexei Ratmansky, almost certainly the leading ballet choreographer right now, whose differing combinations of classical and modernist tendencies can run from the fascinating to the infuriating.  Intriguingly, this time he's setting music by the electroacoustic multi-media composer Peter Ablinger — much more modern than Ratmansky usually goes.  And he totally nails it:  this is the best new ballet I've seen in ages.  Among the other pieces on the bill is Justin Peck's Bright, which readers of this List will want to know sets music by the NOW Ensemble's Mark Dancingers.  It's another of those rather slight pieces that makes you wonder whether the perpetually promising Peck is frittering away his considerable talent.  Speaking of disappointing careers, the program also includes Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia (on Ligeti!):  if, as time goes on, this looks like it's the only great ballet Wheeldon ever has and perhaps ever will make, it's still great.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  Bar Boulud is a good French bistro, for somewhere across the street from Lincoln Center.